Chapter 32 Dante
There’s a precise limit to the amount of truth our bodies and minds can endure before shattering completely. It took me hours just to stop reminding myself to breathe, to pry myself off Estella’s lap and stand on my own.
My mind is still clouded, thoughts a turbulent storm as I walk. My hair is a mess, my body taut with paranoia, every nerve screaming as I glance over my shoulder, expecting the world to strike at any moment.
After everything that happened, we returned to the hotel.
Estella drifted into sleep almost immediately.
I wanted to follow her into that fragile oblivion, but I couldn’t.
Not when I knew Jason was waiting for me at the base.
Surprisingly, he hadn’t called again after our last encounter.
The hotel remained quiet all evening and through half the night—an eerie, suffocating silence.
I quicken my pace, thoughts colliding and spinning out of control. My body still trembles, a low hum of unrest vibrating through every muscle. I’d be lying if I said I feel better, because I don’t.
Some memories exist in our minds for a reason: locked away, buried under layers of survival instinct. And now, after facing them, after uncovering the truth behind the feelings that haunted me, shock still claws at my brain.
Estella’s presence was a lighthouse in that storm, guiding me through my darkest corners. She helped me process the wreckage, revealing one feeling that burns brighter now that the raw pain has been muffled.
Rage.
Pure, untamed, unrelenting rage. For both of us. Neither of us wanted it to come to this, yet despite every effort, it’s all we’re left with. It’s a feeling that hums in the air like static, a bitter reminder that we are never enough.
Thunder rumbles overhead, and a jagged lightning strike cleaves the darkness, illuminating the night for a heartbeat.
The moon hides behind thick clouds, its faint glow failing to cast comfort.
Estella sleeps in the hotel, while I wander alone, heading to the base with no clear direction, driven only by the fury building inside me.
I don’t know how I’ll explain it to Jason. How do I tell him it was all a lie? That my pursuit of comfort was a futile chase, that my parents were monsters who preyed on me, stripping away my defenses until I no longer recognized myself?
Fuck this mission. Fuck my parents. Fuck The Order.
They’ve tried to separate me from Estella, to fracture the one thing that grounds me, but I will do everything in my power to stop them.
She is my everything. She holds my life in her hands, and I would let her take it without hesitation if that’s what she desired. Because there will never be another like her—no one who sees me completely, who reads through me without judgment.
Another growl of thunder rolls across the sky as I finally reach the base. My hand tightens around the door handle as I inhale sharply before pushing inside.
The moment I step in, I freeze. My eyes lock on Jason, standing over a table strewn with folders and papers, chaos spilling across its surface. It doesn’t take long to realize what they are. I can even see the box of souvenirs I left back in my apartment in Barcelona.
Rage ignites in me again, brighter and hotter than before, pushing every other thought aside.
“How did you get these files?” I ask, my voice tight with fury.
Jason runs a hand through his hair, the motion frantic. He’s a mess—half his shirt untucked, sweat darkening the fabric around his collar, armpits glistening under the harsh light, chaos reflected in every movement.
“I knew something was off from the beginning, fuck, we both did,” Jason says, his voice disturbingly calm.
A brittle chuckle rattles out of him, dry and humorless, scraping at the air.
“Lucia was the one trying to shove the suspicions away. She kept telling me, ‘No, Jason, he’s just struggling. It’s how he copes. He’s always been like that.’”
The muscle in my jaw twitches violently. “Get to the point, Jason. Tell me how the fuck you got these files.”
I remember every step I took with razor clarity—every precaution, every deletion. I saved the information about Estella to a flash drive, printed the only copies, then wiped my computer clean. Nothing should’ve remained.
“You started acting weird,” he continues, as if explaining obvious math to a child. “So I activated a precaution. Your computer synced with mine—anything you clicked, anything you searched, any link you opened. Your browser history alone was enough.”
Rage blooms inside me like a field of early-spring flowers bursting through frost. “You could’ve used that a long time ago. So why now?”
He shrugs, pushing papers aside with a careless sweep of his hand. “Guess I didn’t want to believe it. Lucia’s influence, maybe. But you forgot something important.” His gaze hardens. “Theodore’s mansion has cameras, even underground.”
My entire body locks, and my fists tighten. Heat slams through me, pumping adrenaline into my bloodstream.
He saw it. All of it.
Every moment Estella touched me, every second our bodies collided, every breath I took as I shattered in her arms.
We didn’t know the room existed because it wasn’t on any of the maps, and we sure as fuck didn’t know there were any cameras down there.
The buzzing itch beneath my skin turns violent. I stare at him, but rage blinds everything else, bleaching the world until only that scorching white heat remains.
My eyes drop to the desk, to the files. To the evidence of every private, intimate search I conducted. Every detail I gathered about Estella—protected, hidden, buried away where no one was supposed to look.
When I look back at him, I no longer see the man I’ve known for years. I don’t see a partner who shared my interests, a friend who stood beside me through thick and thin.
There’s nothing left to see.
He betrayed me.
All that time—he and Lucia pretending to care, asking their gentle, stupid questions, pretending to worry about me. It was all a test. A way to study the cracks in me.
They never cared. And I wouldn’t have cared about that if they’d just stayed the fuck out of my business.
“You’re fucking done, man,” Jason says, disappointment dripping from his words like acid. “You were obsessed with her from the beginning.”
“I was intrigued by her,” I bite out.
“You were—and you are—fucking obsessed.” He gestures to the papers, exasperation clawing across his face.
“No point in bullshit now. Your cards are on the table.” Another shake of his head, like he’s watching a child ruin his life.
“Christ, Dante. Tracking down a professor and killing him because he had a connection to her? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
The question echoes, ricocheting inside my skull, bouncing off the wounded, still-bleeding walls of my mind.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. It always sounds the same—drenched in disgust, disbelief twisting every syllable, their eyes gleaming with the exact same thing.
Fear.
And once, that fear made me shrink. Made me try to carve that part out of myself, to hide it, to pretend it didn’t exist.
But Estella saw and accepted it without hesitation.
So now? I fucking embrace it.
“You’re right, Jason,” I say, stepping toward him.
The slightest ripple shivers through his frame as he retreats a pace, and the movement tugs a small, curling smirk from my lips.
“There is something wrong with me. See, you and Lucia live in this neat little world of black and white, and I get it.” I spread my arms, letting the gesture fill the space between us.
“You’re good people. Hollow as an empty shell, sure—but good, at least in the eyes of everyone else. ”
He edges back again, his mouth twitching like trapped words are clawing at his teeth, desperate to escape. He doesn’t want to lose control. He’s hanging on by the thinnest thread, and the fear in his eyes—fuck, the bright, intoxicating gleam of it—only swells. It feeds the storm in my chest.
“Do you even hear yourself?” he spits, a laugh shattering free from him, brittle and humorless.
“What do you think you are? What do you think she is? The two of you, just a pair of psychopaths who were made for each other? You think after tonight you’re going to walk off hand in hand, ride off into the sunset, start over?
” he snorts. “Maybe crank out a couple little psychopaths while you’re at it? ”
A muscle beneath my eye jerks. My vision narrows to a tunnel, the rage slipping in through every crack, wrapping itself around me like a living thing. The more he talks about her, the more my bones itch to break something—to break him.
Estella has shown more humanity than the entire swarm of ‘normal’ people crowding my life. Even those I once called friends.
“You still don’t understand, Jason. You never will,” I say, every muscle straining as I fight to keep still.
The emotion burns under my skin, pulsing, pushing, trying to tear out of me, and I bite down on it, hard.
“I never wanted kids. I never thought I’d get some happily-ever-after.
You really think I’m obsessed with her because she manipulated me into believing she understands me?
That’s what you’re clinging to, isn’t it? ”
“Dante, how the fuck could she understand you?” he fires back. “You grew up in a perfect, rich family—two loving parents who got killed by The Order. That’s why you started fighting. How could you forget that? How could you betray them? Dishonor them like this?”
Loving parents—a lie so fake it made me want to vomit. I wasn’t lying when I told it to Estella back in Mexico.
His words twist something deep in my gut, sharp enough to rip me open from the inside. A fresh blaze roars up my spine, and everything flashes red as the accusations echo—each one a strike meant to crack me the fuck apart.